Western Australian Certificate of Education
Sample Examination, 2016
Question/Answer Booklet
ENGLISH
Section One
Sample 2
Time allowed for this paper
Reading time before commencing work: ten minutes
Working time for paper:
three hours
Materials required/recommended for this paper
To be provided by the supervisor
This Question/Answer Booklet
Number of additional
answer booklets used
(if applicable):
To be provided by the candidate
Standard items: pens (blue/black preferred), pencils (including coloured), sharpener,
correction fluid/tape, eraser, ruler, highlighters
Special items:
nil
Important note to candidates
No other items may be taken into the examination room. It is your responsibility to ensure
that you do not have any unauthorised notes or other items of a non-personal nature in the
examination room. If you have any unauthorised material with you, hand it to the supervisor
before reading any further.
Copyright © School Curriculum and Standards Authority 2015
2014/35153
ENGLISH
2
SAMPLE EXAMINATION:
SECTION ONE Sample 2
Structure of this paper
Section
Section One:
Comprehending
Number of
questions
available
Number of
questions to
be answered
Suggested
working time
(minutes)
Marks
available
Percentage
of exam
3
3
60
60
30
Instructions to candidates
1.
The rules for the conduct of Western Australian external examinations are detailed in the
Year 12 Information Handbook 2016. Sitting this examination implies that you agree to
abide by these rules.
2.
Write your answers to each section in this Question/Answer Booklet.
3.
You must be careful to confine your responses to the specific questions asked and to
follow any instructions that are specific to a particular question. If you fail to comply you
will be penalised.
4.
Spare pages are included at the end of this booklet. They can be used for planning your
responses and/or as additional space if required to continue an answer.
● Planning: If you use the spare pages for planning, indicate this clearly at the top of
the page.
● Continuing an answer: If you need to use the space to continue an answer, indicate in
the original answer space where the answer is continued, i.e. give the page number.
Fill in the number of the question that you are continuing to answer at the top of the
page.
See next page
SAMPLE EXAMINATION:
SECTION ONE Sample 2
3
Section One: Comprehending
ENGLISH
30% (60 marks)
In this section, there are three texts and three questions. Answer all questions.
You are required to comprehend and analyse unseen written and visual texts and respond
concisely in approximately 200–300 words for each question.
The questions are of equal weighting.
Suggested working time: 60 minutes.
See next page
ENGLISH
4
SAMPLE EXAMINATION:
SECTION ONE Sample 2
Text 1
This is an edited version of a speech given by the then Burmese resistance leader Aang San
Sauui Kyi when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
When the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to me they were recognising that the
oppressed and the isolated in Burma were also a part of the world, they were recognising the
oneness of humanity. So for me receiving the Nobel Peace Prize means personally extending
my concerns for democracy and human rights beyond national borders. The Nobel Peace Prize
opened up a door in my heart.
We are fortunate to be living in an age when social welfare and humanitarian assistance are
recognised not only as desirable but necessary. I am fortunate to be living in an age when the
fate of prisoners of conscience anywhere has become the concern of peoples everywhere,
an age when democracy and human rights are widely, even if not universally, accepted as the
birthright of all. How often during my years under house arrest have I have drawn strength from
my favourite passages in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
… disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have
outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall
enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the
highest aspirations of the common people…
… it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion
against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law…
If I am asked why I am fighting for human rights in Burma the above passages will provide the
answer. If I am asked why I am fighting for democracy in Burma, it is because I believe that
democratic institutions and practices are necessary for the guarantee of human rights.
The peace of our world is indivisible. As long as negative forces are getting the better of positive
forces anywhere, we are all at risk. It may be questioned whether all negative forces could ever
be removed. The simple answer is: ‘No!’ It is in human nature to contain both the positive and
the negative. However, it is also within human capability to work to reinforce the positive and to
minimise or neutralise the negative. Absolute peace in our world is an unattainable goal. But it
is one towards which we must continue to journey, our eyes fixed on it as a traveller in a desert
fixes his eyes on the one guiding star that will lead him to salvation. Even if we do not achieve
perfect peace on earth, because perfect peace is not of this earth, common endeavours to gain
peace will unite individuals and nations in trust and friendship and help to make our human
community safer and kinder.
I used the word ‘kinder’ after careful deliberation; I might say the careful deliberation of many
years. Every kindness I received, small or big, convinced me that there could never be enough
of it in our world. To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and
needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can
change the lives of people.
Ultimately our aim should be to create a world free from the displaced, the homeless and the
hopeless, a world of which each and every corner is a true sanctuary where the inhabitants will
have the freedom and the capacity to live in peace. Every thought, every word, and every action
that adds to the positive and the wholesome is a contribution to peace. Each and every one of
us is capable of making such a contribution. Let us join hands to try to create a peaceful world
where we can sleep in security and wake in happiness.
See next page
SAMPLE EXAMINATION:
SECTION ONE Sample 2
5
Question 1
ENGLISH
(20 marks)
Discuss three language features Aang San Sauui Kyi uses in Text 1 to persuade her audience of
the need to strive for a peaceful world.
See next page
ENGLISH
6
See next page
SAMPLE EXAMINATION:
SECTION ONE Sample 2
SAMPLE EXAMINATION:
SECTION ONE Sample 2
7
ENGLISH
Text 2
This is a black-and-white reproduction of a 2008 advertisement for the charity organisation:
People In Need.
See next page
ENGLISH
8
SAMPLE EXAMINATION:
SECTION ONE Sample 2
Question 2
(20 marks)
Explain how Text 2 persuades a particular target audience to give rather than to buy.
See next page
SAMPLE EXAMINATION:
SECTION ONE Sample 2
9
See next page
ENGLISH
ENGLISH
10
SAMPLE EXAMINATION:
SECTION ONE Sample 2
Text 3
This is an extract from the beginning of the novel Mallee Sky by Australian writer Kerry
McGinnis.
Kate dreamed of home.
She was a pigtailed child again in the sunlit stubble of the wheat paddock, with the wind in
her face and the sound of laughter drowning the song of the ground larks. Megan squatted
beside her, plucking the scarlet poppies and plaiting them into a chain. In the dream her adult
self remembered how hard it was to actually split the slender stems. Instead they wound them
together, producing scarlet coronets with which they crowned each other. ‘It’s too red,’ she said,
giggling to see the results when set on Megan’s ginger curls.
‘Don’t care.’ Megan wound another strand around her pale freckled wrist. She had lovely creamy
skin that burned red and peeled; she was supposed to stay covered from the sun, but her hat
was off now and her face already turning pink. They had been looking for the fox’s den in the
next paddock when the blaze of poppies amid the silvering stubble caught their eye. Tomorrow
the sheep would be turned into the paddock, as they always were after harvest. So it was now
or never, and with one accord they’d abandoned their quest in favour of gathering the fragile
blossoms growing wild in the wheat.
‘They won’t last.’ Kate’s voice was sad. And as if her words had conjured it, a cloud covered the
sun, cooling the air and hiding their hunched shadows.
‘So what? There’ll be more,’ Megan said, but Kate turned her head and looked away down the
slight slope to where her family’s farmstead lay in the hollowed shell of mallee scrub that had
been left as shelter against the hot north-easterly winds. The farmhouse with its red roof and
stone chimneys lay under the cloud but the iron roofs of the sheds, some patched with rust,
glinted in sunlight. Sheets flapped on the washing line and smoke rose from the kitchen chimney.
‘There’s Dad.’ Kate pointed at the distant figure but Megan was silent. Kate looked back then,
but in the way of dreams her friend had vanished and the stubble and poppies with her, leaving
a formless grey emptiness. Her heartbeat quickened. She shivered in sudden cold and woke to
find a fine mist of rain blowing in through the open bedroom window
See next page
SAMPLE EXAMINATION:
SECTION ONE Sample 2
11
Question 3
ENGLISH
(20 marks)
Explain how McGinnis has used three techniques to influence your interpretation of Text 3.
See next page
ENGLISH
12
End of Section One
See next page
SAMPLE EXAMINATION:
SECTION ONE Sample 2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Section One
Text 1
Suu Kyi, A.S. (2012). Nobel Lecture. Retrieved August, 2014, from www.
nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1991/kyi-lecture_en.html
© The Nobel Foundation 2012
Text 2
Stolze, C. (2007, June). Aftershave [Image]. Amsterdam: Saatchi &
Saatchi for People in Need. Retrieved October, 2014, from http://
creativeadvertisingworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/aftershave.jpg
Text 3
McGinnis, K. (2013). Mallee sky. Melbourne: Penguin. Retrieved October,
2014, from www.penguin.com.au/products/9781921901461/malleesky/358223/extract
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